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14 March 2016

The new dimming system uses ADB's Eurodim Twin Tech modular system that allows each way to be freely switched between being a dimmer and a true non-dim under software control; the 10 racks, housing 894 3kW and 213 5kW DimSwitch modules, were installed over a five week period while performances continued un-interrupted on the Coliseum stage.

"We've been planning this project for a number of years," explains ENO's head of lighting, Kevin Sleep. "From the time our existing dimmers, installed less than 10 years ago, started flashing randomly during a show we knew they had to go, and that we had t

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14 March 2016

The event was presented but not attended by Daft Punk, whose aforementioned album is set to become one of the fastest-selling in history - although in Wee Waa it played to a crowd of 4,000.

Daft Punk's production house Daft Arts conceived and designed the space, which lived up to its description as a cross between Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. The eye-popping circular dance-floor, with a giant disco ball hanging overhead, was

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14 March 2016

The Broadway transfer of the West End stage hit Matilda also won four awards including best book of a musical. Pam MacKinnon and Diane Paulus took home the awards for best direction of a play and a musical respectively. It is the first time in 15 years that two women have won the honours for direction in the same year.

Silver Clef - Alison Moyet is to be honoured with the Icon Award at this year's Silver Clef Awards. The annual event, which takes place at the end of June, is in aid of the music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins. Moyet said she was honoured to be recognised by the charity. "I've adm

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14 March 2016

Supplied and installed by AV integrator Saville Audio Visual, the three-chip DLP PT-DZ21K projector has significantly upgraded the venue's projection facilities, with 20,000 lumens of brightness and a 10,000:1 contrast ratio. Partnered with a 24ft wide adjustable, multi-format projection screen, the solution provides a state-of-the-art presentation facility in central London.

One of the recent major events in the auditorium has been an exclusive London screening of the digitally restored DVD of Billy Liar introduced by Sir Michael Parkinson, a close friend of the writer, the late Keith Waterhouse. Presented by the British Library and Studiocanal, the scree

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14 March 2016

The room's tiered, dinner theatre style seating offers a few interesting acoustical challenges. As Patrick Sobers of Birmingham-based Media Visions explains, "it's a fan-shaped room, with dinner theater style table seating on tiered rows. But the front section is almost at orchestra pit level; you don't get to stage height until the third or fourth row."

With a throw to the last row of around 60ft, the problematic space called for a sound system that could be shaped to create the custom coverage the room needed. Media Visi

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14 March 2016

The Dare to Dip campaign tour which began in Copenhagen has been travelling through cities in Europe including locations in the UK. It invites women to take part in public swims with friends in a branded repurposed skip which doubles as a pool. The event challenged women to join in a series of events designed to take their confidence to the next level by sharing their first of many dips this summer at an iconic location. With captured content shared from the first dip at every location being used across TV, radio, online and print

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14 March 2016

AFC3 is an acoustic conditioning system which adjusts and enhances the acoustic characteristics of a space, while preserving its natural features. It achieves this by creating feedback loops using microphones and speakers located in the reverberant field of the room to 'recycle' the reverberant energy, thus extending the reverb time.

The first European AFC3 installation is at Gäddviken Rehearsal Hall, the rehearsal facility for Stockholm's Royal Opera. Its 625m2 floor area and 17m ceiling height provides enough space to accommodate the Opera's orchestra, choir, soloists and complete stage sets. However, being a very

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14 March 2016

The festival, which runs each August, has almost 300 venues which can vary as widely as upstairs at a pub or a conference room to an otherwise disused store room and a shipping container in a car park. In addition to independently run venues, there are also companies such as Pleasance, which hires 21 rooms that are normally part of Edinburgh University's student association.

This year, Pleasance has teamed up with dealer Black Light to install ETC lighting and control in every one of its spaces - including 26 ETC control desks. Pleasance's head of lighting Dom Knight explains, "Our venues range from the 50-seat Cellar and Hut to our flagship Pleasance Grand,

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14 March 2016

According to ASL's CEO and founder, David B. Scherz, "It was a strategic decision to take on SGM at the end of 2012 and we are delighted by the initial response.

"Due to our long term relationship with many customers in Switzerland we introduced the brand via a selective private roadshows and are now holding weekly workshops all over the country as well as sending out sample units."

One of the first companies to see the new product showcase was Winkler. "It was the first company we visited and they were immediately interested in the X-5 [white strobe] and P-5 [high-powered washlight]," reports Scherz. &qu

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14 March 2016

With its theological roots in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a sanctuary that seats around 1350 people, Lifegate's technical production values need to match that of a concert like atmosphere.

Currently in the process of moving to a multi-site model on a new campus, the church recently took the decision to remodel its existing stage and lighting, and upgrade its video delivery system from SDI to HD.

This included the installation of state of the art Spot One and Wash One LED moving heads from GLP in an investment driven by the Church' Executive Director, Creative Communications and Technology, Robert Wilson.

It was local GLP dealers Heartland Sce

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14 March 2016

CT has invested in over 350 500mm x 500mm modules of the MC's new 7mm range manufactured by screen specialist displayLED, to provide high impact displays on the impressive production of P!nk's Truth About Love tour, designed by Baz Halpin and Chris Nyfield.

The set consists of 10 separate configurations of MC7 modules, built around the centrepiece of a 'dressed' heart-shaped 6m tall MC7 screen, flanked by four moving video 'picture frames' which fly spectacularly around the set throughout the show. In addition, four columns of MC7 rise from the stage behind the band while, further back, another screen forms a backdrop for P!nk's dramatic departure on a descending lift.

"T

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14 March 2016

Aldred spent weeks testing samples from various manufacturers to find a solution that was portable and sufficiently robust without compromising on shine - Harlequin Hi-Shine met all his needs from the very start.

"The more I work with it the more it impresses me. It's had no problems with big dogs jumping around on it, nor 5ft long, 40lb lizards with razor sharp claws, and is extremely easy to keep clean. If a more durable, more cost effective, effortless to maintain, glossier and portable surface exists, I've certainly never heard of it."

As the striking vinyl display flooring choice for television sets, high-profile entertainment, fashion shows, conc

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14 March 2016

Some 23,000 dance fans partied all night long to the sounds of more than 54 internationally renowned DJs, including top names such as Paul van Dyk, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox and Sven Väth.

Production company schoko pro installed more than 360 tonnes of audio visual equipment for the party, designing a four-fingered Truss-Claw and a Monster-Mirrorball as the major centrepiece from the ceiling. A special trick was the ability to move and tilt the Claw above the audience's heads, to create permanently changing lighting effects.

Lighting designer Thomas Gerdon, who was responsible for the design of the main floor for the second time, knows the key ingredients for such mega techno events and how to enthuse the masses. However, a lot of restraint and sensitivity

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14 March 2016

An all-star cast came together at the Charing Cross theatre for Dear World - the quirky story of a Parisian bistro, receiving its UK premiere 44 years after it was produced on Broadway. A longtime user of Sennheiser 5000 series wireless systems, sound designer Mike Walker saw the production as the ideal way to see how the 9000 series sounded.

"I wanted to try the 9000 series on a production with various vocal ranges, to hear it with excellent singers at the top of their game," he says. "The show was using fourteen 5000 series - EM1046 with S

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14 March 2016

Given a fairly open rider, and based on their successful experience with PR Lighting fixtures in the past, they created an exciting show based around 25 XL1500 Wash and Spot fixtures; these were deployed as overhead effects.

Drawing heavily on the fixtures' library of gobos, and making creative use of the zoom and dimmer effects, they were able to deliver an exhilarating stage show.

FE Belimlight's Igor Piotrowski said: "These products offer great feature-sets with good colour rendering and are easy to rig. They proved very popular with the artists' production and tour promoters."

The company has also been using PR Lighting fixtures on the second

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14 March 2016

"I needed a good quality LED wash light for rental stock and Robe has the best fixtures," confirms Jalal, who considered several options before making his choice. He adds that the LEDWash 600 is now on virtually every technical rider that they are seeing when it comes to specifying a moving LED wash light. "They are reliable, lightweight, the output is amazing and t

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14 March 2016

The Mela is Europe's largest Asian open air festival and the 2013 event attracted well over 200,000 people to celebrate the Bengali New Year with a mix of parades, stalls, exhibitions, funfairs and live music. It is a complex and sensitive event to steward, but AP's knowledge of the event and local area ensured that the company's staff made a significant contribution to its smooth running.

"We have been working at major events in Victoria Park and the surrounding area for many years, so it was a natural process for us to bring that together with our previous years experience of the Mela," says AP national sales manager John Phillips. "Of course that didn't mean we co

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14 March 2016

The colourful, award winning, glittering, fast paced, witty show which features a stream of disco numbers is the latest high profile West End musical to hit the road, and is being project managed for XL by Ed Cooper, who has worked on previous shows for the producers.

For this one, XL engaged in some heavy customization of the main scenic piece - the bus - which is built onto a large stage truck and forms the hub of Brian Thomson's touring set design.

The bus has four 'windows', which are made from 96 panels of XL's Pixled Flex-10 high-resolution flexible LED screen product.

The Flex-10 is used to make up straight panels on t

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14 March 2016

dBs Music opened its first centre in Plymouth 15 years ago, with Camborne and Bristol in 2011 and 2012 respectively. The company partners with local colleges and universities in each location to deliver specialist education to FE and HE level, offering courses in everything from music for film and TV to live sound degrees and music production diplomas.

The Allen & Heath GS-R24's combination of refined analogue quality, versatility, control and ability to i

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14 March 2016

Taking place at ExCeL London for the first time at PLASA London from 6-9 October 2013, the AudioLab Arena is a purpose-built space for large-format loudspeaker demonstrations, shoot-outs of club sound and PA systems, and private exclusive demo rooms.

The new AudioLab Theatre is an audio school with three expert classes; Live Sound, Installed Sound and The Sound Business.

The third new attraction is AudioLab Interactive, a myth-busting laboratory where visitors can see live experiments on a range of pro audio equipment. Created in conjunction with audio consultancy, RH Consulting, AudioLab Interactive gathers pro audio experts from around the globe to test pro audio theory. The programme inclu

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14 March 2016

The festivals were Run To The Sun in Newquay, Cornwall; Field Day and As One in The Park at Victoria Park, Hackney, east London; We are FSTVL, a brand new 15,000 capacity dance music festival at Damyn's Hall Aerodrome in Upminster, Essex ... and down on the Brixton frontline at the O2 Academy, offering the best of drum 'n' bass, was Hospitality.

Over 700 moving lights were deployed by CSE across the weekend - mix of Robe, Martin, Clay Paky and GLP plus others - together with around 200 strobes and an eclectic bunch of other effects

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14 March 2016

Ian Jones is head of technical services at Anvil Arts says: "When we made the decision to purchase Clay Paky and MA Lighting products, our primary aim was to raise the bar for our house production lighting and take the first steps toward future proofing th

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14 March 2016

Mike Edwards, Director of Lumonic Ltd comments, "We are delighted that Jerome Dunn, president of StageLight, has chosen to take our products in the US. StageLight is a long-established, very successful company with four branches in three states in the mid-south of America. They pride themselves on their service and desire to offer new technology, allowing their customers to stay ahead of the game. This exciting development for both parties coupled with our new product development plans fits beautifully with StageLight's future business aspirations. We look forward to a

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14 March 2016

"Over the past six years, the Knight Of Illumination Awards have become much coveted and respected amongst UK lighting professionals," says Glyn O'Donoghue from Ambersphere Solutions. "The prestigious nature of these awards are truly reflected by the high calibre of our generous sponsors this year."

For six years the KOI Awards has celebrated outstanding achievements in British lighting design in the sectors of TV, Theatre, and new for this year: Concert Touring and Events (previously titled 'Rock'). And this year it is even better than ever. In recognition of the huge creative impact video now has on show design KOI has launched a new category acr